村里来了个“流动法庭”法官洋助理

这是一座面包车里的法庭，车里有原告、被告、法官及书记员。

位于内蒙古西北高原，巴彦淖尔乌拉特中旗，是一个在媒体上鲜少听到的草原城市。它藏在内蒙古西部草原深处，北临蒙古国，是西北的中国北大门。

在这里你可以听到“天苍茫，雁何往，心中是北方家乡”，它是《鸿雁》的故乡。

Inner Mongolia and its vast remoteness present a unique challenge to local officials who have vowed to deliver justice to all of its residents, even if that means putting it on wheels and taking it to people's front doors.

Endless steppes, wild herds, and the occasional yurt are typical sights in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region landscape. 

This generalized description, albeit incomplete, also speaks to its remoteness. Inner Mongolia is the third largest among provinces and autonomous regions in China, occupying 1,183,000 square kilometers of land, while ranking only 23rd in population with approximately 25 million residents. 

凛冽的寒冬，阴霾的天空，一望无际的荒原，颠簸不止又一直到不了的车，这是我们去年冬天前往乌拉特中旗拍摄的情形。

戈壁荒原上，我们看到了零零散散，分布在草原深处的人家。每户距离少则一两个小时车程，多则四五个小时。

那，你是否能想象在这样一个地广人稀的地方，当地人将如何打官司？

This is particularly important to keep in mind in order to understand the need for the local government to resort to creative ways to serve the public, including the delivery of justice – which takes a quite literal meaning.  

CGTN Digital traveled to the prefecture-level city of Bayannur in early December to meet up with Judge Wang Junast who presides over the township's mobile circuit court – a van with the back-end gutted out and transformed into a miniature court room with two wooden benches on each side and a desk where the judge and an assistant can work behind from. 

流动中的法庭

可能在我们的大多数的印象里，法庭是这样的。

但是这里的法庭可能不太一样，因为它长这样。

是的，你没看错，那个航拍图像里红色圆圈里的就是法庭。

颠覆你的理解对吗？是的，这就是我们此次拍摄的主角---流动法庭。

那什么是“流动法庭”？

The idea of a court with the ability to move to remote stretches of the region was officially introduced in 2007 but had been a common practice many years earlier as a way to not only provide legal services to some of its poorest and most isolated residents, but also to attend to unresolved litigation. Many of these are between townspeople or between individuals and institutions such as banks and businesses. 

Only in certain cases will the mobile court be dispatched, mainly whenever a defendant does not respond to a court notice or a plaintiff's lawsuit and such person does not live in a village where there is a case collection court. Each township has multiple collection courts that forward legal cases to the township's lower courts for judgement or settlement.

我们国家有960万平方公里，幅员辽阔，这意味着什么？

意味着除了城镇外，我们国家还有大量偏远的、欠发达地区。

受地形限制或者因生活方式的影响，它们零零星星地分布在深山、草原、牧区、湖区中，人居分散，交通不便。

那么在这种条件下，遇到纠纷怎么办？想起诉怎么办？要打官司怎么办？

嗯，就在红圆圈里的车里开庭审理。

它长什么样？

如图所示：

这辆外表看起来跟普通面包车没什么区别的车，其实内含玄机，车厢内部呈T型分布，靠近驾驶室的两个座位提供给法官和书记员。

与这两个座位垂直分布的两排座位呈对称分布，一侧提供给原告，一侧提供给被告。

在这辆车里，配有法院巡回审判系统，采用一体化设计，具备同步录音录像、远程监控、远程电子签章、出具文书等全部法庭庭审功能。

草原孤独的风景线

此次我们的外籍挑战记者则是这位---Oscar（奥斯卡），一个墨西哥裔的美国人，而他的挑战工作是---流动法庭法官助理。

Judge Wang agreed to allow me to take over his assistant's job for three days. That meant that at a minimum, I had to learn basic legal terms in Mandarin Chinese, a language I am a novice in; let alone the fact that I would need to rely on my producer's translations to understand both the judge and the villagers. Needless to say, language was the greatest hurdle I needed to overcome.

However, a challenge for any person seeking to work in this part of the country would be to also know Mongolian. Many of the people living in rural areas speak a dialect that often combines Mandarin and Mongolian. 

这次挑战可能是《老外挑战360行》最艰难的一次，受语言和法律专业限制，Oscar事先要经过专业的培训、了解背诵每项文书的内容，以保证自己能以最专业的态度协助法官。

但真正的挑战来自于路上，有柏油公路的主干道一马平川，但去往距离主干道较远的、那些草原深处的零星人家的道路则是千沟万壑、坎坷不平，只有这一辆流动中的审判车在这莽莽苍苍的草原上孤独地穿行。

而这穿行，一次就是整整一天，从太阳在草原的东方升起到在西边降落。

车里的人自然也不是很好受，在座位上上下颠簸，安全带在这里是一个绝对必需品。否则，遇到一个大颠簸，你可能会飞到天花板上。

We hit the road by the second day on the job, riding in the mobile court unit for over eight hours with outside temperatures dipping below zero, and with few rest room stops or food breaks. It was exhausting. These work shifts on the road can go on well beyond 12 hours, and up to four times a week.

Apart from having to work long hours, judges and their staff must deal with road hazards. We encountered several of them while traveling, including herds of sheep in the middle of the highway, and deteriorated asphalt. I quickly realized what an immense effort it took just to reach a single household – and that is if the person the judge is searching for is even available. Cellphone towers are rarely in sight and landline phones are scarce. 

Reaching people had to be done by going to them, and driving was the best means of transport – despite the dangers.

Even after all these efforts, some defendants will either refuse or avoid speaking to the judge – a vehicle with police lights showing up to one's property with a couple of suited officials knocking at your door isn't typically a welcoming site. Knowing this, the judge will take his or her time to converse with litigating parties, deescalate a situation and try to broker an agreement. 

Sometimes the judge will get defendants to respond in writing and convince them to voluntarily show up to a hearing. Other times defendants will choose to settle the case on the spot. 

It is an approach I did not expect from local authorities. As an outsider, my impression of the Chinese governments is often associated with sternness. It became apparent that, at least at the local level, it is not always the case; educating residents about the legal process is just as important as making judgements, albeit a constant challenge for justice officials.

家门口的正义

自从流动法庭巡回审判车投入使用以来，乌拉特中旗法院已受理2569件案例，审结2547件。而流动法庭不止存在在这草原，目前在我国的新疆、西藏、重庆、云南、宁夏、四川、广东、广西等都有流动法庭的身影。

“流动法庭”是基层人民法院的派出机构，其工作最贴近群众，最贴近生活，与人民群众的休戚相关，是司法机关与人民群众密切联系的桥梁和扭带。 

小法庭有大作为，“流动法庭”、“巡回法庭”、“马背法庭”等审判方式与城市里法院那些看上去就“十分威严”审判大厅里程序严密、手段复杂的正规实施的庭审规则不可同日而语，但在我国偏远、欠发达地区，“流动法庭”却是行使国家审判权、实现社会公平正义的一种行之有效的方式。

Jia Xiaoyan, another judge who also works on these remote cases, explained that this soft approach is the most effective way to get parties to come to the table. Punishing non-compliant parties by fining or jailing them often leads to failed and incomplete resolutions, especially when dealing with rural and often poor residents who are not always able to pay up or who are breadwinners in a family.

This experience has shown me that a one-size-fits-all way of governing isn't always in the best interest of the general population. Inner Mongolia, with its unique set of challenges – including its remoteness, its language, its culture – is just one example of the difficulties in offering public services to all of its people.

Although not perfect, a mobile court is an experiment that both Wang and Jia believe has yielded positive results, an answer to the local government's need to offer justice in underdeveloped corners of China.

正义或许会迟到，但它永远不会缺席。

纵使我居草原深处、纵使我居群山之上、纵使我居高原云间，总会有这样一辆孤独穿行的小车跨越千山万水来到我家，省我诉讼之繁、省我颠簸之累、省我劳顿之苦。

这，就是我家门口的正义。

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